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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language, along with references

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Speaker 1: to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: What must it have been like to be Levon and

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Speaker 2: be sitting in that chair, you know, knowing you've just

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Speaker 2: been wrongly convicted of crime, but then like having to

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Speaker 2: sit there and take it while somebody's saying that you're

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Speaker 2: biologically defective and you're missing this part of your brain,

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Speaker 2: and like they're doing it in your interest to save

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Speaker 2: your life, you know.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. After two three year old

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Speaker 1: girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, two innocent

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Speaker 1: men were convicted and were in prison for decades. Meanwhile

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Speaker 1: the real killer remained free. Today, I'm talking to Radley

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Speaker 1: Balco and Tucker Carrington about their fantastic book, The Cadaver

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Speaker 1: King and the Country Dentist, a true story of injustice

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Speaker 1: in the American South. Tucker and my father started the

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Speaker 1: Actual Innocence Clinic at the University of Texas. Before he died,

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Speaker 1: I worked with them. I was at the journalism well

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Speaker 1: I'm still at the journalism school, but I co taught

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Speaker 1: the law school class at actual Nisance Law School class

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Speaker 1: so I would take attorney of Young Young, one of

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Speaker 1: the attorneys to prison and interview potential clients. But my

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Speaker 1: dad never saw our first exoneration. He died before that happened.

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Speaker 1: So I really admire this book, but I especially admire

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Speaker 1: the work that you do know, and maybe we could

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that.

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Speaker 3: First.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what you do, and

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Speaker 1: then Bradley, let's talk a little bit about your area

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Speaker 1: of expertise before we jump into the story.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I teach at the law school. I teach a

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Speaker 4: couple of doc chrinal classes from time to time, but

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Speaker 4: mainly what I do is teach in the legal clinic, which,

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Speaker 4: as you know, maybe listeners don't, is an opportunity for

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Speaker 4: law students, usually like in their second or third year

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Speaker 4: of law school, to jump into what amounts to a

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Speaker 4: small law practice and put into practice the sort of

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Speaker 4: theory that they've learned in their sort of doctrinal classes.

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Speaker 4: And there's all different kinds of clinics. I happen to

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Speaker 4: direct a criminal justice clinic, specifically an innocence clinic, So

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Speaker 4: we have live cases in the clinic that were work

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Speaker 4: you knowin either we're investigating to see whether we think

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Speaker 4: it's a meritorious claim that we should devote some resources

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Speaker 4: to all the way to cases that are deep into litigation,

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Speaker 4: and the students come in and they are in essence,

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Speaker 4: associates in this small law firm, and they get to

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Speaker 4: work alongside with practicing licensed attorneys who are either me

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Speaker 4: or my colleagues, or we often co counsel cases with

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Speaker 4: outside lawyers, lawyers outside of the law schools, sometimes in

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Speaker 4: the cippy or elsewhere. And you know, the other thing

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Speaker 4: I'd say about is what you sort of alluded to

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Speaker 4: with your dad and the clinic at Texas, which is

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Speaker 4: for students really irrespective of what clinic they're in, but

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Speaker 4: particularly this one, it's a remarkable experience because, as I

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Speaker 4: tell them, there will never be another time when it's

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Speaker 4: the first time you go to Parchment, say, and meet

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Speaker 4: a client who is serving a life sentence, and that

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Speaker 4: can be a very formative experience. It doesn't mean that

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Speaker 4: all the students will go out and do this kind

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Speaker 4: of practice, but they will be different lawyers, one hope's

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Speaker 4: better lawyers, more empathic lawyers as a result of having

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Speaker 4: these experiences, and they'll never forget it. And so you know,

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Speaker 4: it's a real privilege for me to be able to

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Speaker 4: teach and you know, sort of be alongside and when

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Speaker 4: they had when they have those experiences.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, my experience with taking students to different prisons in

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Speaker 1: Texas was you know, they were, of course expecting the

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Speaker 1: law school students and the journalism students were expecting this

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Speaker 1: to be an experience out of television. And we got

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Speaker 1: to one small, small Texas prison and you know, like

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Speaker 1: the guard was in the tower and he lowered a

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Speaker 1: bucket for us to put our keys and our cell

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Speaker 1: phone in and they got padded down and you know,

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Speaker 1: I was asked, you have metal wire and your bra

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Speaker 1: and then we had a contact a visit which none

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Speaker 1: of us expected for a guy who had been convicted

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Speaker 1: of killing three people. And my dad talked about all

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Speaker 1: that shakes you up. It really shakes them, you know,

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Speaker 1: and in a good way.

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Speaker 4: I think your Brad story is funny because I had

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Speaker 4: a student who did have underwire in her bra and

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Speaker 4: for whatever reason, you know, the prison that day was like, Nope,

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Speaker 4: I don't know how many students I've been with. I

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Speaker 4: don't check their bras for underwire, but I know, you know,

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Speaker 4: in the past. So we had to run out the

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Speaker 4: Dollar General and shop for you know, and I was like,

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Speaker 4: I bet you didn't have this on your law school

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Speaker 4: bingo card, you know, having the one of your professors,

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Speaker 4: you know, buy you some some underwear. But that's something

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Speaker 4: all joking aside. It is the kind of experience that

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Speaker 4: you just just don't get unless you do the work.

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Speaker 3: Radley.

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Speaker 1: But what about you, Is this your first experience working

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Speaker 1: kind of in exonerations or is this part of what

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Speaker 1: you do as a journalist.

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Speaker 2: Well, I kind of got my start in journalism with

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Speaker 2: a case that was a wrongful conviction, although it resulted

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Speaker 2: in him getting a plea deal and not an exoneration.

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Speaker 2: But it was the case of Corey May which was

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Speaker 2: also in Mississippi. And actually how I first learned about

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Speaker 2: Stephen Haynes because he did the autopsy in that case.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, that was a case where the guy had

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Speaker 2: was sleeping in his home which was half of a duplex.

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Speaker 2: The police raided the place in the middle of the night.

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Speaker 2: His eighteen month old daughter was on the bed. It

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Speaker 2: turns out they were targeting the guy who lived in

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Speaker 2: the other half of the duplex, who was a known

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Speaker 2: drug dealer. And this guy, Corey, woke up, you know,

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Speaker 2: heard people breaking into his house, shot and killed one

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Speaker 2: of the officers and then immediately surrendered with bullets still

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Speaker 2: left in the gun. And so yeah, I started writing

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Speaker 2: about that case, and you know, there were a lot

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Speaker 2: of problems in that case. But one of the problems

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Speaker 2: was the testimony that Stephen Hayn gave. Corey claimed he

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Speaker 2: was on the ground and was shooting up at the

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Speaker 2: officer because he was scared, and Hayne claimed that the

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Speaker 2: trajectory the bullet was going down through the officer's body

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Speaker 2: and so then he speculated the Corey must have been

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Speaker 2: sort of laying in weight to pounce and it you know,

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Speaker 2: it had a big impact on the jury. It wasn't

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Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't the most by any means of

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Speaker 2: the most outrageous testimony Haine had ever given, but you know,

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Speaker 2: it was enough probably to swing the jury. And you know,

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Speaker 2: even at that point, it was very early in my career,

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Speaker 2: but I had sort of done enough of these raide

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Speaker 2: cases to know that when you know, when you find

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Speaker 2: one thing, when you find one instance of that sort

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Speaker 2: of misconductor or misleading testimony for somebody who probably haven't

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Speaker 2: found the only example. So I just started calling around

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Speaker 2: the South and just saying, you know, I'm looking into

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Speaker 2: a questionable medical examiner. And like most of the times,

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Speaker 2: I couldn't finish the sentence before the person would say, oh,

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Speaker 2: you're talking about Stephen Hayin in the Mississippi right, Like wow,

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Speaker 2: So so yeah. I mean, I I've written about a

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Speaker 2: number of wrongful convictions over the years, but that one,

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Speaker 2: that one was the one that was kind of kind

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Speaker 2: of started my career and also was the gateway to

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Speaker 2: this book.

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Speaker 1: I think, let's start with the story. You know, true

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Speaker 1: crime is so heavy as a genre, but this story

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Speaker 1: feels even heavier than most of the stories that I've covered.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about two little girls who were raped and

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Speaker 1: then murdered. We're talking about wrongful convictions with very clear

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Speaker 1: racist undertones throughout, and bad science the justice system. There

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Speaker 1: are so many big themes, Tucker. I wonder when you're

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Speaker 1: at some dinner party and somebody says, give me the

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Speaker 1: thirty second pitch on this book, what do you highlight

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Speaker 1: the most besides this is clearly a wrongful conviction case.

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Speaker 4: Well, usually I just walk away and get another drink

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Speaker 4: when someone asked me that. Now, because the story can

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Speaker 4: be so dispiriting, I want to go back a second though,

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Speaker 4: before I answer your question and say, one of those

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Speaker 4: people that Radley called was me. I had just gotten

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Speaker 4: to Mississippi, and I've told this story before, but it's true.

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Speaker 4: The law school wasn't quite prepared for my arrival. So

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Speaker 4: I had this sort of cut up office, small on

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Speaker 4: both portions, with a sort of half dividing wall in

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Speaker 4: my desk and computer were on one side and the

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Speaker 4: phone was on the very other. And you know, I

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Speaker 4: got there and I started the clinic, so there was

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Speaker 4: there was really nothing there, and there were several days

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Speaker 4: early on when I looked around, there's no application, nothing.

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Speaker 4: But one day my phone rang, and you know, I thought,

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Speaker 4: oh my god, this is this is great. Someone's reaching out.

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Speaker 4: I ran across to get out to go, you know,

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Speaker 4: to the other side, and it was Radley who had

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Speaker 4: not I think it was the first time we had spoken.

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Speaker 4: And anyway, all that to say that it's true that

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Speaker 4: Radley you know, got involved in this Corey May case

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Speaker 4: and has been indefatigable ever since. Radley did go briefly

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Speaker 4: to law school. In some ways, I'm glad he didn't finish,

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Speaker 4: because he's a terrific journalist, but he would have been

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Speaker 4: a ferocious lawyer by the same token. So I guess

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Speaker 4: what I say to an answer to your question is

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Speaker 4: I had an inkling for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 4: about some of what was going on, both because of

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Speaker 4: what Radley was asking me in the Corey May stuff

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Speaker 4: he was covering. I also remember distinctly being in my

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Speaker 4: office again early on and really not sort of knowing

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Speaker 4: what to work on the att or how to organize things.

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Speaker 4: So I thought, well, let me just read some recent

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Speaker 4: Mississippi Supreme Court opinions. I'll start there. And I picked

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Speaker 4: up one, and it was a murder case where the

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Speaker 4: victim had been killed with a shotgun from a sort

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Speaker 4: of distance, and the expert had testified that he could

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Speaker 4: tell essentially where the person was and the angle of

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Speaker 4: the gun, and that the person in fact had been

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Speaker 4: across the street shooting at an upward trajectory, as I recall,

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Speaker 4: and I remember I had just come from DC. I

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Speaker 4: was a public defender, and I remember thinking, what in

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Speaker 4: God's name is who possibly can testify to this? Like

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Speaker 4: what this would never I mean, it would never have

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Speaker 4: even been offered DC Superior Court, much less, and it was.

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Speaker 4: It turned out it was doctor Haynes who testified. And

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Speaker 4: this was early on. I didn't I hadn't connected all

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Speaker 4: the dots yet, but as between Radley's called, I distinctly

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Speaker 4: remember reading that case. And then in late two thousand

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Speaker 4: and seven, early two thousand and eight, these two cases,

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Speaker 4: the Kennedy Brewer case in the Levon Books case which

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Speaker 4: you were talking about, both men were exonerated the Innocent

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Speaker 4: Project in New York. I've been working specifically on Brewer's

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Speaker 4: case for a number of years. They were both exonerated,

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Speaker 4: and as you said, part of what convicted them was

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Speaker 4: fraudulent evidence from these two guys that Weld document in

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Speaker 4: the book, and it became apparent, then obviously a parent

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Speaker 4: that this was sort of the tip of the iceberg,

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Speaker 4: and that there likely were a significant number of other

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Speaker 4: cases that they had been involved in. And then you know,

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Speaker 4: that begs a lot of questions, not only Okay, how

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Speaker 4: do we identify the cases the other cases that need

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Speaker 4: some exims emanation, but it also begs questions about forensic science,

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Speaker 4: begs questions about what appeared to be at least implicit,

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Speaker 4: if not the sort of explicit efforts by all sorts

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Speaker 4: of people, law enforcement, the Attorney General's office, courts to

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Speaker 4: allow these guys to flourish. So I guess that's a

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Speaker 4: long way of saying when someone asked me that at

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Speaker 4: a dinner party or whatever, I guess I also tell

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Speaker 4: them we should go read the book. It's a chunk,

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Speaker 4: you know, It's it's not just mean. I think Riley

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Speaker 4: and I when we wrote the book, I think Radley

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Speaker 4: agrees with this. Emeli does that what we wanted to

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Speaker 4: do was not only talk about the individual cases, but

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Speaker 4: really create a record of just how deep and the

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Speaker 4: breadth of what had happened over the course of a

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Speaker 4: couple decades in the state.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's so hard to kind

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Speaker 2: of squeeze into an elevator pitch just because I mean,

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Speaker 2: this is why we wrote the book, because over the years,

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Speaker 2: you know, Tucker and I would would talk and discuss

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Speaker 2: some of these cases and discuss kind of what was

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Speaker 2: happening in terms of Hain and you know, meantime I'm

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Speaker 2: writing about individual cases, and the amount of exposition that

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Speaker 2: I have to like lay out, you know, the number

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Speaker 2: of paragraphs just kind of set everything up so you

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Speaker 2: fully understand, you know, why this case is completely screwed up.

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Speaker 2: And then Tucker, you know, is having to do the

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Speaker 2: same thing in his in his court filings at some

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Speaker 2: of these cases. And I think at some point we

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Speaker 2: just both realized that, like, if somebody's got to put

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Speaker 2: all of this somewhere, like, you know, this has to

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Speaker 2: be there has to be a place where somebody can

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Speaker 2: go to read this whole entire story. And and I

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Speaker 2: think that's when we decided that we needed to write

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Speaker 2: this book.

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Speaker 1: For the purposes of our show. You know, we're very narrative.

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Speaker 1: We like to tell the story in as much detail

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Speaker 1: as we can to really get a sense of who

257
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Speaker 1: the people are. Do we have a lot of information

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Speaker 1: or enough information about these two little girls to kind

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Speaker 1: of be able to tell the story chronologically starting with

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Speaker 1: their situations. Do we know anything about their personality that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing, Well.

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Speaker 4: You ask a really good, a good question. I would

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Speaker 4: say that these girls are both quite young. They're roughly

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Speaker 4: three years old. So inasmuch as a three year old

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Speaker 4: I think can develop, you know, a personality and a

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Speaker 4: place in the family, I think they did that. I

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Speaker 4: was actually just down in Knoxaby last week visiting with

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Speaker 4: Kennedy Brewer, and one of the things I thought, sitting

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Speaker 4: down on his he lives at his mom's house now,

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Speaker 4: but sitting out in the carport and there are some

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Speaker 4: kids running, little kids running around, is that it's a

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Speaker 4: very sort of poverty stricken part of East Mississippi, and

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Speaker 4: in particular in the black community. You know, that's particularly true.

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Speaker 4: One of the things that struck me as I was

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Speaker 4: watching this one little kid play was just how much

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Speaker 4: of a sort of community effort it is a cross

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Speaker 4: generational effort to live down there, and that that includes

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Speaker 4: raising children everybody sort of looks out for everybody else.

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Speaker 4: You know, there's grandmothers and aunts and friends, and you know,

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Speaker 4: I think it would strike some people as not ideal.

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Speaker 4: You know, there's not a whole lot of nannies around,

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Speaker 4: or governesses or summer opportunities, right There's there's not a

283
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Speaker 4: lot of that down there, and instead there's this group

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Speaker 4: effort to survive and in particular to raise children. And

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Speaker 4: I think just to start that was one of the

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Speaker 4: tragedies in these cases, was that these children were being

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Speaker 4: taken care of in this way. And the downside to

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Speaker 4: that was and I think maybe I can give a

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Speaker 4: Radley an entree to the point he wanted to make

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Speaker 4: was that, you know, there wasn't anybody specifically in charge

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Speaker 4: on either of the Knights that these young children were abducted,

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Speaker 4: and so what that meant was that there were a

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Speaker 4: host of people who suffered the consequences of feeling they

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Speaker 4: failed this child somehow, and of course they really hadn't.

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Speaker 4: You know. It was a tragic situation and there was

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Speaker 4: a sort of serial rapist at work, but not only

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Speaker 4: did it destroy a number of people's lives. When Kennedy

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Speaker 4: and Levon were prosecuted. They weren't really the only ones

299
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Speaker 4: that were prosecuted. There were others who were arrested. And

300
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Speaker 4: then the sort of concentric circles of pain sort of

301
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Speaker 4: radiated out from these events. And what's upsetting about that

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Speaker 4: is that these communities work really hard to do well

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Speaker 4: by their children. They're not perfect. You know, you could

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Speaker 4: argue all day about how, you know, how people raise kids, right,

305
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Speaker 4: we all have different opinions, but they do their best

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Speaker 4: under the circumstances. And here they all suffered greatly as

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Speaker 4: a result of what happened, and they're sort of their

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Speaker 4: whole way of acting and being, which until that day

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Speaker 4: they had felt was more than adequate, came under scrutiny,

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Speaker 4: to say the least. That doesn't really quite put you

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Speaker 4: at the chronological place maybe you want to be, but

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Speaker 4: that sort of sets the tone for, i think, for

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Speaker 4: the atmosphere for sort of what happened.

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Speaker 2: I'll talk a little bit about the night of the

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Speaker 2: first murder, you know, at the home of this this

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Speaker 2: little girl, you know, they put her to bed and

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Speaker 2: there's kind of a bit of a gathering on the

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Speaker 2: porch as people were preparing to go out, and you know,

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Speaker 2: some people were going to this club that had opened

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Speaker 2: for a while that you know, played kind of newer

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Speaker 2: music or had newer bands, and then some of the

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Speaker 2: older people were going to finally Grick Hall, right one

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Speaker 2: of the juke joints nearby. But everybody kind of meets

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Speaker 2: and meets up on this porch and socializes a little bit,

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Speaker 2: and you know, there's there are exchanges. At one point,

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Speaker 2: I think somebody hits on somebody else and there's a

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Speaker 2: little bit of jealousy there, and then you know, they

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Speaker 2: all kind of go out, and what happens is one

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Speaker 2: uncle I believe it is, is asleep on the couch

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Speaker 2: and that's really kind of the only adult who's around.

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Speaker 2: And so this guy who ends up committing these crimes

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Speaker 2: is able to kind of tiptoe past him because he

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Speaker 2: to sleep on the couch and able to abduct the

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Speaker 2: little girl. And that's Tucker talked about. What happens next is,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's basically just kind of a drag net

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Speaker 2: for you know, black any young black men are actually

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Speaker 2: not even young any black men who are in the area.

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Speaker 2: So you know, they start with this older I guess

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Speaker 2: would be sort of a great uncle, maybe who may

340
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Speaker 2: have hit on somebody else, you know, and so they,

341
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Speaker 2: the law enforcement here, you know, sort of processes that

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Speaker 2: as some sort of sex pest type crime. So immediately

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Speaker 2: they start focusing on him. They end up arresting, you know,

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Speaker 2: basically most of the black men in this family at

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Speaker 2: some point or another, and they're all kind of put

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Speaker 2: in a jail cell. And I think at one point

347
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Speaker 2: Tucker correct me if I'm wrong, but the sheriff down

348
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Speaker 2: there says, basically, sort of like his his method of

349
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Speaker 2: investigating a case like this is just to arrest anybody

350
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Speaker 2: who could have done it and sort of put them

351
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Speaker 2: all together and eventually the truth will shake out. And

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Speaker 2: you know, that has really broad ramifications. I mean, the

353
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Speaker 2: one guy who was arrested, the older gentleman, you know,

354
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Speaker 2: he was a youth sports coach, and he gets put

355
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Speaker 2: on the evening news as a suspect in this case,

356
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Speaker 2: and he never really recovers from it. And that's also

357
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Speaker 2: true of one of the younger guys who's arrested. He

358
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Speaker 2: ends up sort of later in the homeless. You know,

359
00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:28,000
Speaker 2: just the arrest themselves have really profound implications on and

360
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Speaker 2: these are the family, you know, these are the families

361
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Speaker 2: of the victim, right, I mean, these aren't just sort

362
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Speaker 2: of random people. I mean people are also grieving as

363
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Speaker 2: they're going through all this. You know, one of the

364
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Speaker 2: things that Tucker told me that Kennedy Brewer in the

365
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 2: other case had told him at one point was that,

366
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Speaker 2: you know, when he got out, which was you know,

367
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Speaker 2: I don't know, was it fifteen years or so after

368
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Speaker 2: the crime, he was finally able to grieve, you know,

369
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Speaker 2: like he like this little girl too. But he didn't

370
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Speaker 2: have time to agree because he was constantly you know,

371
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Speaker 2: he's fighting this conviction. You know, the people who were

372
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Speaker 2: affected by the way law enforcement approached this case were

373
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Speaker 2: also you know, victims, they were also a family of

374
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Speaker 2: the deceased. We talk about race a lot in this book.

375
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Speaker 2: I would also point out that the sheriff in this

376
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Speaker 2: case was black, and a lot of the people involved

377
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:12,840
Speaker 2: in the system were black. I think it's important to

378
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:15,960
Speaker 2: emphasize that because you hear a lot, particularly you know,

379
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:18,960
Speaker 2: since the George Floyd protests, that there's this sort of

380
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Speaker 2: implicit assumption that a system can't be racist to black

381
00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:24,440
Speaker 2: people are operating in it. You know, I think what

382
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Speaker 2: we detail in this book is that the very nature

383
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Speaker 2: of systemic racism is that everybody in the system is racist,

384
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Speaker 2: is that the system itself is a racist, regardless of

385
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Speaker 2: who's operating in it. And I think this case, you know,

386
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,080
Speaker 2: in the way it was handled, both of these cases

387
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Speaker 2: actually really emphasized that point.

388
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Speaker 1: What's the name of the first victim? Are you you

389
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:44,640
Speaker 1: all withholding that or do you talk about her at all?

390
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Speaker 4: No, we're not withholding it at all. The fact we

391
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Speaker 4: dedicate the book to Courtney Smith and Christine Jackson. Courtney

392
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Speaker 4: Smith was the victim in the first case, in Christine

393
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Speaker 4: Jackson in the second.

394
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Speaker 1: So when Courtney Smith goes missing in nineteen and she's

395
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Speaker 1: got this you know uncle, great uncle on the couch,

396
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Speaker 1: and the sheriff who's black, is combing the whole town

397
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Speaker 1: specifically looking for a black man who they're presuming took her.

398
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 1: At what point do they start targeting Levon Brooks And

399
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:19,720
Speaker 1: how is he related to Courtney's family at all?

400
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:23,760
Speaker 2: So Levon had at one point dated Courtney's mother. You know,

401
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:26,040
Speaker 2: the thing is he never really should have been a suspect.

402
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:28,840
Speaker 2: He was working at this club on the night of

403
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 2: the murdered. In fact, Courtney's mom saw him at the

404
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 2: club that night, as did other people. You know, he

405
00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 2: becomes a suspect for reasons that are so. There was

406
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:42,359
Speaker 2: one the older uncle had a habit of putting a

407
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 2: quarter in his ear, and so when they're interviewing Courtney

408
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 2: Smith's sister, who was in the room at the time

409
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,399
Speaker 2: of the abduction, she, you know, at some point she

410
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 2: says something about an ear or something about somebody having

411
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:58,200
Speaker 2: something in their ear, and the guy who's interviewing her,

412
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 2: who we can talk about later, Uncle bunk kind of

413
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 2: seizes on this and makes it and basically sort of

414
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 2: thinks that, oh, he must have been wearing an earring,

415
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 2: and so Levon Brooks for an earring. He had once

416
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,160
Speaker 2: dated Courtney's mother. I don't think he actually ever even

417
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 2: met Courtney. But he becomes a suspect basically because he

418
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,440
Speaker 2: wears an earring and because the girl at one point

419
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 2: described somebody who had a quarter in the air. The

420
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 2: uncle who put his quarters in his ear, you know,

421
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,160
Speaker 2: was innocent also, but he just happened to be there

422
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 2: that night the girl saw him. I mean, I gotta

423
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 2: tell you, when you read the interview Uncle Bunkie had

424
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 2: this girl, it is it's one of the most sort

425
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 2: of tragic and heartbreaking and also sort of darkly I mean,

426
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 2: if it were fiction, it would be darkly humorous, right,

427
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:47,640
Speaker 2: because it's just the way that he pulls information out

428
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: of her and sort of keeps what he wants and

429
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,199
Speaker 2: discards everything else. I mean, it's just a it is

430
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 2: a it ought to be sort of taught as how

431
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 2: not to interview children for law enforcement, but that this

432
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,440
Speaker 2: is how Levon becomes a suspect. Basically, it's this kind

433
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:04,359
Speaker 2: of loose connection with the ear. He then gives her

434
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 2: a couple of photo lineups and both of them they're

435
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 2: highly suggestive, and it's pretty clear, you know, sort of

436
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 2: who he wants her to choose.

437
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 1: Now, what is Levon saying he was doing at the

438
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: time you said he was at a club? Is that?

439
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: Is that what his alibi is for when Courtney disappears.

440
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,600
Speaker 4: Leavon did a lot of things for work, and one

441
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,800
Speaker 4: of them was to work at this club, which was

442
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 4: between a little town where this happened in Columbus, Mississippi,

443
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 4: which is a bigger town a sort of on the

444
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 4: Alabama border, and this club I think was relatively new,

445
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 4: it was popular. It's packed on the weekends and Levon

446
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 4: worked there after his regular job, and he was sort

447
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 4: of like a jack of all trades. He got there

448
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 4: early and set up. Levon passed away a few years ago.

449
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 4: He was a super charismatic when you say Radley, nice,

450
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 4: funny gentle. People were drawn to him. He was a

451
00:23:57,960 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 4: great higher at this club. As you can imagine. He's

452
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 4: he was the bouncer, but as far as I know that,

453
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 4: I can never actually had to engage in any bouncing

454
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 4: because he just sort of, you know, negotiated problems down

455
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 4: would be my guest, but that's where he was working

456
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 4: the night that or during the time that she was abducted.

457
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 4: He found out that he was a suspect because he

458
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 4: came to the club one evening a few days after

459
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 4: the murder, and the law enforcement had just been there

460
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 4: looking for him, and so his coworker said, hey, they

461
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 4: just they came to look for you. They wanted to

462
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 4: talk to you about the Courtney Smith thing. And so

463
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 4: Levon said, well, you know, let me go run down

464
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:44,679
Speaker 4: to Macon, which is the county seat, and to the

465
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 4: police station and let me just take care of this

466
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 4: and now I'll be back still early, I think still

467
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 4: early enough the afternoon and the evening, I'd be back

468
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 4: to work. So he went down and said, I don't

469
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 4: know what to tell you. I was at work and

470
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 4: have anything to do with it. But that was it.

471
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 4: That was the last time, you know, he was free

472
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 4: until he was exonerated in two thousand and eight, and

473
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 4: we went down to sort of straightened things out.

474
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the last we had known she had

475
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 1: been taken and was missing. When do we find out

476
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: what actually happens to Courtney? How long does that take?

477
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 2: I want to say it was about three or four days.

478
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 2: Is that right? Took her?

479
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 4: That's about right. There's a little bit of delay in

480
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 4: figuring out that she's missing because, as I said before,

481
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 4: you know, taking care of these kids, oftentimes the group

482
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 4: effort and these kids would sort of go from one

483
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 4: house to another. So when people get there the following

484
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 4: morning sort of come back into the house and she's

485
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 4: not there. No one raises a real alarm because that's

486
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 4: not uncommon for the kids, especially the two children in

487
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 4: the house, to walk down to a relative's house down

488
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 4: down the road. And this, by the way, is a

489
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 4: part of town which is it's dirt roads. It's a

490
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 4: real small community. People wandering around, ride bikes all over

491
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 4: the place, and they think even that her mom may

492
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 4: have come back and picked her up and gone somewhere.

493
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 4: So the arm doesn't really get raised until later that evening,

494
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 4: So it's almost not quite twenty four hours after because

495
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 4: the mom comes home and they say, have you seen her?

496
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 4: And she says, no, I thought you had, you know,

497
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 4: that kind of thing. Yeah, And so the sort of

498
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 4: realization that she's missing happens the following evening and police recall,

499
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 4: law enforcement comes out and there's a search that sort

500
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 4: of goes on through the night. It becomes difficult, obviously

501
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 4: when it gets super dark to do much searching in

502
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 4: places out of the waite places. And so the next

503
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 4: day one of the law enforcement officers happens to be

504
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 4: there's a there's a little pond. It's about I don't know,

505
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,640
Speaker 4: half an acre maybe an acre in size, not too

506
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 4: far away from the house. They had searched the pond

507
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 4: the evening before but hadn't hadn't been able to see anything,

508
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 4: but he looks again and sees something floating in the

509
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 4: pond and walks out to it. It's not very deep

510
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 4: and it's her body that has sort of floated up,

511
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 4: and so he pulls it to shore. So it's I

512
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 4: don't know, it's roughly thirty six maybe a little bit hours,

513
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit more than that after she disappears,

514
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 4: that they find her in this pond.

515
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: And I always have to remind myself and I try

516
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: to remind listeners to the time period that we're talking about,

517
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: which nineteen ninety doesn't seem like all that long ago

518
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: to me, at least my age. But we didn't have

519
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: cell phones. I didn't get a cell phone until I

520
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: think ninety four. This is a much slower process the search,

521
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: even getting her out of the water and driving her.

522
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just delay after delay, I think, compared

523
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: to what we experience now when somebody goes missing and

524
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: then they're discovered, there's just so much more lag time

525
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: because you don't have you have a home phone, you

526
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: have a phone at the precinct. Maybe you have radios,

527
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: you know, and all of that, and pay phones. But

528
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: the communication, particularly when Courtney went missing but nobody knows

529
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: it is I'm sure severely delayed because of that.

530
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's and it's you have to Yeah, you do

531
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 4: have to cast yourself back to nineteen ninety and this

532
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 4: community where kids go off for a while, you know,

533
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 4: and even kids this young, it'll go far, but they'll

534
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 4: go down to somebody else's house because someone else makes

535
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 4: really good, you know, food, and they'll go down there

536
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 4: and watch television. So, you know, the sort of looseness

537
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 4: of you know, the way people live and care for

538
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 4: one another down there actually ended up sort of contributing

539
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 4: to the delay and in realizing that she was in

540
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 4: fact missing.

541
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: Will you tell me, I know that they found out

542
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: that she had been raped. Do we have a cause

543
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: of death for Courtney?

544
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 4: Yeah? The cause of death was manual strangulation and freshwater drowning.

545
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: What were they able to pull from her? I'm assuming semen,

546
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: anything else that was helpful. She was in the water

547
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: for a few days. I don't know what the dcomp

548
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: was like on that.

549
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 4: Not really, you know, this is pre DNA at some level.

550
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 4: It wasn't like the forensic examination collection was with an

551
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 4: eye towards what we all now would think about think

552
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 4: of DNA testing. And also as we get further into

553
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 4: the story, it's unclear precisely what they were able to

554
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 4: get in the way of a rape kit, but they

555
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 4: did do a rape kit. Other than that, I don't

556
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 4: know that there was really much that was material or

557
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 4: probative ultimately with respect to the evidence they collected. But

558
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 4: there was one important piece of evidence which was collected earlier.

559
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 4: There's a patch of earth. There's probably more than one,

560
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 4: but somewhere over central Knoxabye County where the Fourth Amendment

561
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 4: doesn't apply. That was where all these adult males were

562
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 4: just rounded up. But one of the things law enforcement

563
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 4: did was they took cheek swabs from all the people

564
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 4: that they rounded up, which comes to be an important

565
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 4: factor later on in the case.

566
00:29:54,320 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: What was Courtney Smith's mother's reaction to the interest and

567
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: her ex boyfriend, Levon Brooks. Did she think, yeah, that

568
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: totally makes sense that guy was a scumbag or did

569
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: they have a good ending?

570
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 3: What was her reaction?

571
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Levon was you know, as Tucker said, he

572
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 2: was extremely charismatic. He had a lot of girlfriends over

573
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: the years, but he also always seemed dend things on

574
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 2: a good note with him, so he didn't have you

575
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 2: know a lot of women angry at him for past romances.

576
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 2: And that was true of Courney Smith's mother as well.

577
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 2: She saw him at the club that night. She said, Hi,

578
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 2: you know, they had a brief conversation, and you know,

579
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 2: I think both because of who Lebron was and the

580
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 2: type of person that he was, and because she had

581
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: she had seen him that night, she was skeptical of

582
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 2: him as a suspect. And that goes all the way

583
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 2: through his trial, and in fact, one of the just

584
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 2: really kind of chilling moments for me and the story is,

585
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 2: you know, she testifies at his trial. She's you know,

586
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 2: she's not a hostile witness for the state, but she's

587
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,719
Speaker 2: not she's not incriminating Lebron. She's just kind of answering

588
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,239
Speaker 2: the questions. And then after he gets convicted, during the

589
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: sentencing portion, she's called a stand by the prosecutor forrest Allgood,

590
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 2: and he basically asks her if she thinks that Levon

591
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: should be executed, and she says no, and he turns

592
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: on a dime and he just basically starts treating her

593
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 2: like asti witness. And you know, I mean prosecutors in

594
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 2: these cases they're always talking about the victims, are always

595
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 2: talking about how they represent not just the people, but

596
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 2: also the victims and the victims' voices need to be heard.

597
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 2: And here's a victim saying, I think he got this wrong.

598
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 2: And in his closing argument to the jury, he attacks

599
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 2: her for being a bad mother. He basically says, you know,

600
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 2: she let her daughter get killed, and now she's like

601
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 2: trying to tell you not to execute the man who

602
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 2: killed her, and and you know, just really goes after her.

603
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 2: And it was such a veil dropping movement right where

604
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 2: it's like, you just see just how sort of bloodthirsty

605
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 2: this prosecutor is. And you know she was right in

606
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 2: the end, it wasn't you know, he didn't do it, So,

607
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 2: you know, she again, I think she was victimized obviously

608
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 2: because of what happened to her daughter. But then I

609
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 2: think she was, you know, victimized again by the prosecutor

610
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 2: in the state of Mississippi when she you know, when

611
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 2: they attacked her for being a bad mother at this trial.

612
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: Did whomever do this know that people weren't home, or

613
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: this house was relatively empty, or where Courtney would have slept.

614
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: Did they have to be familiar with the layout to

615
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: be able to pull this off.

616
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know the real answer to that,

617
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 4: My guess is yes, I mean, I think, you know,

618
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 4: the true perpetrator was a known quantity around the neighborhood,

619
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 4: so I think he must have been familiar at the

620
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 4: very least with, you know, this sort of social dynamics

621
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 4: around these houses and who was at home and who wasn't.

622
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 4: I will also say, though, that you know, what he

623
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 4: did was fairly in both instances, was still fairly brazen,

624
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 4: I guess is the word for, you know, sort of

625
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 4: walking into a house past a sleeping adult in the

626
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,959
Speaker 4: above Brooks case and then raising an open closed window

627
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 4: and reaching in the in the Kennedy Brewer case is

628
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 4: both I think raising and also consistent with you know,

629
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 4: someone who has some real significant, you know, anti social

630
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 4: behavior characteristics. I mean, and those weren't the only things,

631
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 4: the only crimes we know that he committed. I think

632
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,719
Speaker 4: there were some serious issues going on in addition to

633
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 4: his familiarity with where he was doing these things.

634
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was he was clearly mentally ill,

635
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 2: and I think he was eventually diagnosed with some sort

636
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 2: of form of schizophrenia. When he confessed to the crimes,

637
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 2: he talked about, you know that there are voices in

638
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 2: his head telling him to do it and you know

639
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 2: not obviously that doesn't excuse anything, but this was somebody

640
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 2: who was suffering from untreated, you know, mental illness, and

641
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 2: this was the result.

642
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: When Courtney Smith is found in this pond and you know,

643
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: they are determining cause of death and they're doing the

644
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: rape kit and all of that, and the family I'm

645
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: assuming is reeling and they are looking at Levon Brooks.

646
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: What is then the timeline after that to win another

647
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: three year old Kristen Jackson goes missing, same circumstances.

648
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:09,280
Speaker 3: Does this feel familiar?

649
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:11,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so they don't, you know, they don't immediately

650
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 2: fixate on Brooks. I mean, Brooks is who they start

651
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: to focus on after you know, they've made a couple

652
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 2: of wrongful arrests, and eventually, you know, they focus in

653
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 2: on this earring situation. I mean, maybe maybe one way

654
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 2: to tell the story is to just talk about sort

655
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 2: of how how Brooks became, you know, was arrested and

656
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 2: became the main suspect, which is that they brought in

657
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 2: you know, Stephen Haynes, this medical examiner who does the autopsy,

658
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 2: claims to find bite marks on the body that we

659
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 2: later thought to be bug marks. But this is our

660
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: bug bites, but this is you know, decades later. He

661
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 2: then brings in Michael West, his sort of sidekick, who

662
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 2: had been at that point working with five or six

663
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 2: years probably, but they would work together for the next

664
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 2: twenty and so West is brought in to take dental

665
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 2: impressions of all the suspects and I think that maybe

666
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 2: about a half dozen, including insidantly the person who actually

667
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 2: did it. And so West takes dental impressions from all

668
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 2: of these people and basically eventually concludes that that it

669
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 2: was Brooks. And so, you know, they had done a

670
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: rape kit. You know, this was very early on in

671
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 2: sort of the DNA story, so that wasn't going to

672
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 2: be conclusive. But you know, Wes clean that his BYTEmark

673
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,439
Speaker 2: matching was better than a fingerprint, and so if he

674
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: could could match the bite marks on a body to

675
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 2: the teeth of suspect, that was you know, that was gold,

676
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: particularly at that time because this was when this bite

677
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 2: mark junk science was sort of finding a lot of

678
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 2: resonance with the courts, and so this is that's how

679
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 2: Ruer ends up being arrested. He's given a eventually he's

680
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 2: given a lie detector test, by an FBI agent who

681
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 2: says he fails it, which should tell you something about

682
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 2: lie detector tests. And so all those things together, I

683
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 2: think basically make make Lebon sort of the main suspect.

684
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: And he wasn't. He definitely wasn't the first person to

685
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 2: be arrested, but he was the person they ended up

686
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 2: you know, settling on. And then it is I want

687
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 2: to say, was it about a year and a half later, Tucker,

688
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:06,720
Speaker 2: that the next murder happens.

689
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, May of May of nineteen ninety two, and of

690
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 4: course by then Levon had been to trial.

691
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 2: Right, So yeah, So when I think about this story,

692
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 2: there are moments that still just kind of give me

693
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 2: chills when I think about them. And one of them

694
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 2: is when when all good, you know, force, all good

695
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 2: turns on Courtney's mother. But the other one is at Brooks'

696
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 2: trial also during the sentencing phase. So he's been convicted

697
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 2: and now they're deciding whether or not to sentence him

698
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 2: to death. So during the sentencing portion of Levan's trial,

699
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 2: as mitigation, which is something defense attorneys are supposed to

700
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 2: do to save their client's life, they put on this

701
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 2: expert medical expert who claims that Levon is missing a

702
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 2: piece of his brain that deals with impulse control, and

703
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 2: so that he doesn't have this you know thing that's

704
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 2: sort of part of the brain that makes us civilize, right,

705
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 2: and this is why he's raping and murdering little girls.

706
00:36:57,640 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 2: And I just remember, like, what what must it have

707
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 2: been like to be Levon and be sitting in that chair,

708
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 2: you know, knowing you've just been wrongly convicted of crime

709
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 2: that he didn't commit, but then like having to sit

710
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 2: there and take it while somebody's saying that, like you're

711
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 2: biologically defective and you're missing this part of your brain,

712
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 2: and like they're doing it in your interest, just to

713
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 2: save your life, you know. But that was one of

714
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 2: the moments of the story that I remember when I

715
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 2: read that of a transcript, you know, I had to

716
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 2: stop and you know, take a break and then go

717
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 2: back to what I was doing.

718
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: So what was he ultimately? Did he get life in

719
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: prison or what was his sentence?

720
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 4: Got sentenced to life? Well, Jerry came back and was

721
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 4: not unanimously noting for death, so he got a life sentence.

722
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: So was is he sent to like a supermax or

723
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: where does he end up?

724
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 4: He has Department Actually, that's not true. That he went

725
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 4: to a different prison in Central Mississippi for a brief

726
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 4: period of time, but then went to Parchment after that.

727
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,280
Speaker 4: That's where he spent the bulk of his incarceration.

728
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 1: And in the grand scheme of prisons in Mississippi, where

729
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: does Parchment lay as far as just brutality, I can't

730
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: imagine he has an easy time, But where does he

731
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,360
Speaker 1: fit in into the ecosystem of prison?

732
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 2: You know, nobody does well in prison, obviously, but he

733
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 2: does comparably well because he's he's a little older. He

734
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,279
Speaker 2: very quickly kind of earns respect of other prisoners. As

735
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 2: Stucker said, he's very charismatic. He told me one story

736
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 2: that I still remember today, which is that, you know,

737
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 2: one of the things he said, when you first get

738
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 2: into prison is that you you're alone, right, You're still

739
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 2: trying to figure the system out. You're still trying to

740
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:28,919
Speaker 2: figure out where you fit into all this. And he said,

741
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 2: just you know, having comfort of someone knowing someone in

742
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: that system is kind of on your side, you know,

743
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 2: was immense comfort to him. He didn't find in many places.

744
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: One of the things he did at the club where

745
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 2: he worked was he would cook food after the club

746
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 2: closed and sell it to people. So he gets a

747
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 2: job in the kitchen at the prison and he he

748
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 2: leverages that job to help him, you know, sort of

749
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 2: gain social status within the prison. But he talks about

750
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 2: what he talks about. One thing he would do is

751
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 2: he could tell when when there was a new person

752
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 2: in the prison and that they were struggling. And he said,

753
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: he remember, you know how important it was to him

754
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 2: for him just to know that somebody was on his

755
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 2: side and somebody found somebody like that, he would just

756
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: give them an extra portion of something. And you know

757
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 2: it's not it's not like it's going to be valued

758
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: a valued commodity. But it was just the act, you know,

759
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 2: just the sort of note, the idea of hey, you know,

760
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 2: I'm I can tell you're struggling. I'm doing this for you.

761
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,399
Speaker 2: And he said one guy in particular, years years later

762
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 2: after he had served as a sentence, came back on

763
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 2: visiting day and told Levon that, like, you know, you

764
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:32,439
Speaker 2: did that to me in my one of my first

765
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 2: days in the prison. You gave me an extra portion.

766
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,919
Speaker 2: And he's like, I never forgot it, you know, And yeah,

767
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: that was who who Levon was? He was a very empathetic,

768
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 2: very very ahead, a very high social IQ. You know,

769
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 2: he could he could read you, which which I learned

770
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 2: a couple of times when I first met him.

771
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about what happens a year and a

772
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: half later. Are Kristen Jackson and Courtney Smith? Are their families?

773
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: Do they know each other really well? Are they related

774
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:01,919
Speaker 1: in any way? Are they close by each other?

775
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 4: They know one another, I mean, it's a pretty small

776
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 4: set of communities there, but they don't know each other

777
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 4: super well. Okay, and in fact it's not the same community.

778
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 4: They're roughly I can't remember now, but I think it's

779
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 4: about eight or so miles as the crow flies between

780
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 4: these two communities. It's not far. But they don't know

781
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 4: one another well and they don't socialize often. But they're

782
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 4: not strangers either.

783
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 2: You know, if people weren't close, everyone sort of knew

784
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 2: of one another.

785
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: In the story, tell me about the circumstances behind Kristen's disappearance.

786
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: You said this is May of ninety two, about a

787
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,359
Speaker 1: year and a half after Courtney Smith is found dead.

788
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 4: So Kennedy Brewer, who's the person ultimately charged and convicted

789
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 4: for Christine's murder. He and his girlfriend live in a

790
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 4: house out in the country, sort of set apart from

791
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,239
Speaker 4: other handles, is on a dirt road. It's pretty isolated

792
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 4: where they live. It backs up to a bunch of

793
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 4: fields and a creek. The house is in just terrible condition,

794
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 4: as I recalls, a lot of it was dirt floors.

795
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 4: I don't know that they actually had running water, or

796
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 4: at least consistently running water. On the night that all

797
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 4: this happened, Kenny is there with Christine or both. He

798
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 4: and his girlfriend are there, and his girlfriend leaves to

799
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 4: go with some friends out that evening, and Kenny's in

800
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 4: charge of the children, and they're all at home inside,

801
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 4: and he puts them to sleep, to bed, and then

802
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 4: a couple actually a couple of his friends come down,

803
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 4: guy friends from a house up the road. It's actually

804
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 4: the landlord, but they come down and they watch some

805
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 4: TV at his place, and then he goes to sleep.

806
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 4: His girlfriend comes back home. They then all go to bed,

807
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 4: and Christine is in the room with them at the

808
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 4: bottom of their bed when they go to sleep. The

809
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 4: next morning when they wake up, though she's not there.

810
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 4: In that case, it's unlike the earlier one. It's fairly

811
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 4: clear that you know something's gone wrong. She's not. This

812
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 4: is not a community where there's that many people that

813
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 4: live nearby, and so people start looking for her, including Okay,

814
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 4: and they sort of move out up and down the

815
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 4: dirt road. They go to a couple of houses, they

816
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 4: go back into the fields, they go down towards the creek,

817
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 4: and they can't find her. It's not long though, before

818
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,280
Speaker 4: they bring some tracking dogs, some bloodhounds in. It doesn't

819
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 4: go well, there's not a it doesn't seem like there's

820
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 4: anything super promising, but one of the dogs does go

821
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 4: down farther along the creek to a pool that you know,

822
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 4: where the creek is pooled some but it's from what

823
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 4: I gathered from law enforcement, it was hard to get

824
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:54,919
Speaker 4: in there. I mean I've been there. It's like it's

825
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,320
Speaker 4: a thicket. I think Raley's been there to me, especially

826
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 4: by this point in May. It's difficult to get to

827
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 4: and there's a bunch of snakes, so it's not something

828
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 4: that you just want to sort of, you know, knock

829
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 4: your way into. So they actually bring law enforcement brings

830
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:14,760
Speaker 4: up a big helicopter and they drop the helicopter down

831
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 4: over this portion of the creek, and evidently the rotor

832
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 4: blades blow the water out of this pool far enough

833
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 4: that they can see her body in the pool, and

834
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 4: so they go in and recover it, and you know,

835
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 4: it's it's essentially not unlike the earlier case. She seems

836
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 4: to have been sexually assaulted, probably it's unclear, but you know,

837
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 4: probably strangled, manually strangle, which turns out to be the case.

838
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 4: Her body is found relatively speaking, fairly soon after she's

839
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 4: gone missing.

840
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: Does doctor Hayne identify another bite mark that needs to

841
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: be analyzed by his buddy.

842
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that it happens again. And in this case,

843
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 2: you know, they focus on Kennedy fairly early on because

844
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 2: because there's a little bit of tension between the families,

845
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 2: and you know, I think the Jackson family sort of

846
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 2: suspects Kennedy may have had something to do with it,

847
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 2: and so law enforcement done very quickly focus in on him.

848
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 2: And so Haines finds, you know, magically finds the bite

849
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,399
Speaker 2: marks brings in west. You know, they're able to match

850
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: the bite marks to Kennedy. You know, one thing about

851
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 2: Wes too is that he was never you know, he

852
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 2: never was able to generate new suspects for the police. Right,

853
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: he never was able to find bite marks, and you know,

854
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 2: you didn't have a database. They random against. It was always,

855
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 2: you know, they always brought in West once the police

856
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 2: suspected someone, and then West sort of magically confirmed their suspicions.

857
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: And that's what happened in both of these cases.

858
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have such a hard time.

859
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: Bite mark evidence to me is some of the weirder

860
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: of the junk science pseudoscience.

861
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 2: But I mean West was especially at landish, brazen, cocky,

862
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 2: you know, I mean West claim that he could find

863
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 2: he could use ultra violet light and these yellow goggles

864
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 2: and find bites on a body that nobody else could see,

865
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 2: including including bites bites that had been left you know,

866
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 2: weeks or months earlier that it mostly healed, and you know,

867
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 2: only he could do it. And you know the process

868
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 2: there or seffalcasions where he said the process couldn't be photographed,

869
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 2: so you would just have to sort of take its

870
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 2: word for it, which is convenient, right, because nobody can

871
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 2: replicate it. Nobody can object. He gave these you know,

872
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 2: law enforcement and what they needed to close these crimes.

873
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 2: And you know, clearly there was a lot of pressure

874
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,360
Speaker 2: on them to arrest someone, to convict someone who setting

875
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 2: someone quickly in these cases and West and hanging help

876
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 2: them do that. It's just poor said that. You know,

877
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 2: they often not often many times they got the wrong person.

878
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 3: I just want to be clear.

879
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: We have a grown man and his girlfriend asleep in

880
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: a room with this three year old sleeping at the

881
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:51,919
Speaker 1: foot of their bed.

882
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 3: Is that right, right?

883
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 1: And then someone sneaks past a grown man and another

884
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: person in a bed and snatches this girl and leaves undetected.

885
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: Talk about brazen you said that before.

886
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 4: Well, in this in this case, the facts were slightly different,

887
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 4: and it was actually one of the reasons that Kenny

888
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 4: became a chief suspect was that the house did not

889
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 4: have a functioning The front door did not have a

890
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 4: functioning lock. Instead, the way you locked it was you

891
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 4: turned a nail on the interior up against the frame.

892
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,840
Speaker 4: You know, you just twisted the nail, And both Kenny

893
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 4: and his girlfriend said when they woke up, one of

894
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 4: the things that baffled them was the door. The front

895
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 4: door was still latched with this nail, so you know,

896
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 4: she had to have gotten out of the house some

897
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:47,839
Speaker 4: other way, and the only other way really was this

898
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 4: window at the foot of their bed. Law enforcement came

899
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 4: sort of serially, you know, there was no there was

900
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,640
Speaker 4: no sort of real organizational scheme. So this first guy

901
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 4: would show up and he looked and figure out someone,

902
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 4: you know, was there any way that someone could have

903
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 4: gotten her out of the bedroom window. So he would

904
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 4: go over and stand outside the house by the bedroom

905
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 4: window and look and figure this looks difficult. Next guy

906
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,240
Speaker 4: would show up do the same thing. Finally the sheriff

907
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,239
Speaker 4: showed up. Actually two guys showed up, and one, as

908
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 4: I recall, tried to like climb on the other's shoulder

909
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 4: and and you know that was kind of difficult. Then

910
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 4: the sheriff showed up. It's like if he was, you know,

911
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 4: fifty pounds, he's like three hundred and seventy five pounds.

912
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 4: And he walked around and he's like, well, there's no

913
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 4: way that happened, because there was a poke slid plant

914
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:39,959
Speaker 4: at the base of the window and it had quote

915
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 4: unquote been undisturbed. But of course what he didn't know

916
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 4: is well, there had been a whole three or four

917
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 4: people had already done this, you know who who hadn't

918
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 4: disturbed the plant. But what had happened was, and as

919
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 4: the troop perpetrator later explained to law enforcement, he had

920
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 4: come to this window and just you know, pushed it

921
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 4: up and reached He didn't climb in, he didn't come through.

922
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 4: He just pushed it up and looked in and presumably

923
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 4: saw her laying there and reached in and took her.

924
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: That's awful. So do you want to shorthand the trial?

925
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: I mean, is he convicted and given a life sentence

926
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: just like Levonne Brooks?

927
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 4: No. Unfortunately for Kenny, I don't know what Rabbit's coming

928
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 4: will be, probably more substant than mine. But I'll just

929
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 4: tell you this. There was concern amongst a lot of

930
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 4: people at first that Kennedy might have been the one

931
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 4: that had killed both girls, because you know, law enforcement

932
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,439
Speaker 4: had this problem on their hands, which is, they had

933
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 4: arrested and convicted Brooks for the murder of this three

934
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 4: year old girl. You know, a short time later, the

935
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:49,239
Speaker 4: exact same offense occurs. Clearly it's not Brooks because he's

936
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 4: locked up at Parchment, and so there was there was

937
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 4: some thought that, well, you know, maybe you ever did it.

938
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 4: Still out, maybe it's Brewer that did them both, and

939
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 4: so in part because of that, Brewer's lawyers moved for

940
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 4: a change of venue out of Knoxyby County over to

941
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 4: the neighboring county of Lowndes. Unfortunately, as far as I know,

942
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 4: still Knoxyby County has never returned to death ord in

943
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 4: all the capital cases that have been tried there. Lowndes County,

944
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,240
Speaker 4: on the other hand, will do it in a heartbeat.

945
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 4: And he was convicted, and sure enough, unlike Brooks who

946
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 4: was tried in Knoxyby County, Brewer got the death sentence

947
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 4: out of Lowndes County.

948
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: How do they explain the girlfriend saying I would have

949
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: known if he had taken this kid and climbed out

950
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:41,720
Speaker 1: the window.

951
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:43,840
Speaker 3: I mean, what did she have to say about all this?

952
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 2: Well, they, Tucker, can maybe get more details, but they

953
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, she was also charged and was

954
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:56,319
Speaker 2: basically threatened, and so she, if I recall correctly, she

955
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:58,959
Speaker 2: at first does say that, and then eventually she sort

956
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 2: of comes around and supports the state after she herself

957
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 2: gets arrested. Is that is that right, Tucker?

958
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was allegations that her children would be They

959
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 4: were threatening to take her children from her and so forth.

960
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 4: You know that and there's seemed to be no other suspects,

961
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 4: and she and Kennedy got crosswise obviously over this and

962
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 4: other things, and she changed her to the extent she

963
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:23,360
Speaker 4: could changed her story.

964
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 2: There's a moment several years after Kennedy's convicted where you know,

965
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 2: he's finally the Project New York is finally able to

966
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 2: get DNA testing done, and it excludes him. He's not

967
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:37,400
Speaker 2: the source of the semen, you know that they find

968
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 2: in this case. And you know, the same prosecutor that

969
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 2: went after, you know, the mother of the first victim,

970
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 2: now in this case, now he's presented with, you know,

971
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 2: evidence that excludes the person that he convicted and got

972
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 2: sentenced to death. And you know, you would think maybe

973
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 2: that in that position, you have two very similar crimes

974
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 2: that a prosecutor might be like, oh shit, you know, like,

975
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 2: well what am I going to do here? Maybe maybe

976
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 2: Michael West isn't the genius you know that I've there.

977
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 2: At one point he compares them to Copernicus in one case,

978
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 2: that he was a man ahead of his time. But

979
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 2: instead he says, no, well that all that proves that

980
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 2: Kennedy Brewer did in rape her, so he must have

981
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,239
Speaker 2: just but we've got this evidence from from Michael West

982
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 2: that the irrefutable. So you know, Brewer must have held

983
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 2: her down and bit her while somebody else raped her.

984
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 2: And so Brewer ends up staying in prison in another

985
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 2: seven years. And all they had to do was run

986
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 2: run the DNA against the state database, and and all

987
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 2: good refused to do that. I don't think I'm not

988
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: being uncharitable when I say I think he didn't do

989
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: it because he knew not only would it exonerate Brewer,

990
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 2: it probably you know, there's a good chance it could

991
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 2: exonerate Brooks as well and ruined his career maybe you

992
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 2: know who knows. But yeah, the the end result is

993
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 2: that not only does Brewer stay in prison for another

994
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,359
Speaker 2: seven years after he should have been exonerated, but then

995
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 2: that means Brooks, you know, also stays in prison long

996
00:51:58,200 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 2: but he should have I mean, he should never.

997
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: Are both of these men released at the same time

998
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, are the separated or what happens?

999
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 4: What happens is that actually, if I might let me

1000
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 4: go back and add to a piece of what Ratling

1001
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 4: is talking about, because it's even worse than all that. Initially,

1002
00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 4: when Brewer was allowed to do his first round of

1003
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 4: DNA testing. Remember now Levon Brooks is still locked up

1004
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:28,239
Speaker 4: serving his life sentence at Parchment Brewer sentenced to death.

1005
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 4: He through the help of some lawyers of Jackson before

1006
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,439
Speaker 4: the Innocence Project arrived on the scene, he gets leave

1007
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 4: to do DNA testing. The test results showed initially that

1008
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 4: there was semen in the rate kit from Christine Jackson.

1009
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 4: When they tested though to see who the source of

1010
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 4: that semen might be, it excluded Brewer and according to

1011
00:52:55,120 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 4: this initial testing initial round of testing, it included two

1012
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 4: unidentified male contributors. So the theory at that point for

1013
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:10,040
Speaker 4: the prosecution was that, huh, we were still sticking with

1014
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 4: our sort of original story. But it must have been

1015
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 4: the two friends that came down to watch TV with Kenny.

1016
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,720
Speaker 4: It was a little bit unclear, but basically their theory

1017
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 4: was that Kenny must have I mean, you know, they weren't,

1018
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 4: as Radly says, they weren't backing away from the West

1019
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 4: BYTEmark identification. So it became this completely ridiculous theory that

1020
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:40,919
Speaker 4: Kennedy somehow held the girl down in bitter while these

1021
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 4: other two guys sexually assaulted her. And it turns out

1022
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 4: that an additional round of testing excluded those two guys.

1023
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 4: So at that point this is all pre two thousand

1024
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:56,240
Speaker 4: and seven. The state, I don't know what their theory

1025
00:53:56,360 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 4: was exactly. The best articulation, quote best articulation came from

1026
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:06,319
Speaker 4: Forest to all Good, which was that Kennedy must have

1027
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 4: sold her for some crack cocaine, that this was all

1028
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 4: some drug adult performance. Sorry to get down these rabbit holes,

1029
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 4: but this is the whole thing is so outrageous. I

1030
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 4: still get my blood pressure still gives up when I

1031
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:24,280
Speaker 4: talk about it. When the police arrested folks in both

1032
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 4: this case and in Brooks's case, they you know, this

1033
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 4: this group of people they arrested, they did drug screenings,

1034
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 4: and Kennedy Brewer didn't use drugs, so he was cleaned

1035
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,320
Speaker 4: into the von. The only person who tested positive for

1036
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 4: drugs turned out to be the true perpetrator who had

1037
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 4: been arrested in Levon's case. So to the extent that

1038
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:48,479
Speaker 4: anybody was using drugs, it was not Kenny. It turned

1039
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,720
Speaker 4: out to be the true perpetrator. In any event, their theory,

1040
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 4: sort of unsubstantiated, racist, you know, was that was that

1041
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 4: Kenny was using drugs and somehow must have gotten rid

1042
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:04,280
Speaker 4: of this girl. But anyway, to get back to your question. Finally,

1043
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 4: Kennedy gets convicted and sentenced to death, and then Kennedy

1044
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 4: is exonerated first in two thousand and eight early two

1045
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 4: thousand and eight, and Levon is actually present at that

1046
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,479
Speaker 4: hearing but is not exonerated until a couple of months later.

1047
00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 4: The prosecution asks that may be able to sort of

1048
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 4: spend some more time with the DNA results. We haven't.

1049
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 4: We haven't gotten to the part yet where Lebon's case

1050
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:36,840
Speaker 4: is sort of implicated DNA wise, But by that point

1051
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 4: some DNA results come back in his case too, but

1052
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 4: the state wanted a little bit more time to review it,

1053
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 4: so it took another couple months for him to be exonerated.

1054
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: So the two of them are exonerated. When do we

1055
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 1: get rid of these stupid theories as well as still

1056
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: leaning into the forensic bitemark evidence and focus in on

1057
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 1: the real perpetrator, who is Justin Johnson.

1058
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 2: Sure, so they find Justin Johnson after running the sample

1059
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:12,320
Speaker 2: and Brewer's case through a state database, and then they

1060
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 2: eventually go and interview Johnson and he confesses to both

1061
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 2: crimes and in in great detail, and and you know,

1062
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,319
Speaker 2: his confession basically matches, you know, the evidence, and so

1063
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 2: it's pretty clear at that point that you know, they

1064
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 2: have their their guy, and you know, this, again, this

1065
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 2: is a guy who was clearly mentally ill. He uh

1066
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,319
Speaker 2: obviously clearly had a drug problem in various times. And

1067
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:41,760
Speaker 2: the way he just kind of immediately kind of opened

1068
00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:44,160
Speaker 2: up but almost I don't know, Mitch Tucker agrees with

1069
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:45,800
Speaker 2: me in this, but it almost sort of felt like

1070
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 2: he was waiting to confess at some point.

1071
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 4: What was really interesting about the DNA testing was that

1072
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 4: the lab in California is staffed by some really cruific

1073
00:56:56,320 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 4: friends in DNA analysts whose separate story. They took the

1074
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 4: semen sample from Christine Jackson's rape kit and retested it,

1075
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 4: and one of the first things they determined was that

1076
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:11,399
Speaker 4: there weren't two male contributors. There was only one.

1077
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:12,839
Speaker 3: Oh I was wondering about that.

1078
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, So then the question was who they didn't know

1079
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 4: because they didn't have any reference samples in Brewer's case

1080
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 4: to run it against. And at sort of that moment,

1081
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 4: one of the things was really interesting is at that moment,

1082
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 4: you know, Lavon Brooks is sort of out of luck

1083
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 4: because the material, the DNA biological material from his case

1084
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 4: had been sent to the same lab, but a lot

1085
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:40,440
Speaker 4: of it, at least from the rape kit from the

1086
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 4: victim in his case, was not usable. But this is

1087
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 4: where those cheek swabs come into the story. If you

1088
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 4: remember I mentioned them earlier, when all those guys had

1089
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 4: been arrested in Levon's case, they'd done cheek swabs, so

1090
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 4: that analyst in California sort of follows the lead of

1091
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 4: the project origionally. Wait a minute, you now, these them

1092
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 4: in these cases seem remarkably similar. Maybe they somehow or

1093
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 4: another in their dragnet got the guy who was around

1094
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 4: the house in Brooks's case, who was also, you know,

1095
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 4: is the contributor for this semen sample. So they went

1096
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,680
Speaker 4: back and they started testing the semen sample again in

1097
00:58:21,840 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 4: Brewer's case with me against the cheek swabs in Brooks's case.

1098
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 4: And one of the people that had been arrested in

1099
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 4: Brooks's case was justin Albert Johnson, the true perpetrator, And

1100
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 4: they made the connection.

1101
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 2: By the way, Johnson had a previous sex offense.

1102
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: I was going to ask that, so tell me what

1103
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: his priors were did he have any priors before this happened,

1104
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 1: or I guess even in A better question would be

1105
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: if they had been able to figure this out after

1106
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 1: Courtney's case, would anybody aside from Christine's life have been saved?

1107
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: Was he doing terrible things from Courtney on forward?

1108
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 4: Well, as far as we know, he didn't murder anybody else,

1109
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 4: but there were some additional sexual assaults. One of the

1110
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 4: really interesting things in my view, and I know I

1111
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 4: know Bradley shares this, One of the reasons we decided

1112
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 4: to write the book is that these cases, as we say,

1113
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 4: shine such a sort of light on real systemic problems,

1114
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:24,960
Speaker 4: separated apart from them from the wrongful convictions. And one

1115
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 4: of them to me, and one of the most compelling

1116
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:31,080
Speaker 4: was Levon to Levin was arrested when he went down

1117
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 4: that night to tell the folks that, you know, the

1118
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 4: police stationally ind know anything about the murder. He had

1119
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 4: to wait I can't now I remember exactly how long,

1120
00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:42,760
Speaker 4: but over a year to go to trial and he's innocent.

1121
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 4: On the morning that his trial was supposed to start,

1122
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 4: which was a Monday, his lawyer clearly had sort of

1123
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:55,200
Speaker 4: gotten around to preparing the weekend before because the lawyer

1124
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 4: noticed that one of the suspects, one of the arrestees

1125
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 4: and Ron's case, had been Justin Albert Johnson. It just

1126
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 4: so happened that this lawyer represented Justin Albert Johnson in

1127
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 4: one of his sexual assault cases in making. And so

1128
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:14,920
Speaker 4: the lawyer said to the judge, you know, this is

1129
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:17,960
Speaker 4: a potential conflict, which he's in. I guess, he said,

1130
01:00:18,000 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 4: potential is because he never really had a theory of

1131
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 4: defense form Levon. Clearly, the theory of defense is that,

1132
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 4: you know, when you're thinking about investigating this case, is

1133
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 4: that Levon didn't do it right, and there's someone else

1134
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 4: who did, and ideally there's someone else who has exhibited

1135
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:39,320
Speaker 4: similar behavior in the past, breaking into people's houses. Yeah,

1136
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 4: this lawyer represented the guy.

1137
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 3: Amazing.

1138
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:47,040
Speaker 4: The judge says, well, to Levon, he says, I guess

1139
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 4: you sort of have a choice. You can you can

1140
01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:53,680
Speaker 4: get a new lawyer because there's a conflict, but that's

1141
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 4: I don't know how long that's going to take, and

1142
01:00:56,600 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 4: you're not going to go to trial today. And in

1143
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:02,560
Speaker 4: Levon's mind, you know, he's like, well, I'm innocent, Let's

1144
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 4: go to trial because the truth will come out and

1145
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,360
Speaker 4: they did go to draw and the truth didn't come out.

1146
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:14,320
Speaker 4: You know, the failures on every level, just in that

1147
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 4: portion of the back and forth. You know, the lawyer

1148
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 4: had just realized the day before trial, essentially the weekend

1149
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 4: before trial, that there was this conflict. He realized that,

1150
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 4: presumably because he had never really investigated the case, hadn't

1151
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 4: thought about it that much. They didn't handle the conflict carefully,

1152
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, I don't mean to get two

1153
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 4: in the weeds, but Levon's lawyer and the judge shouldn't

1154
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 4: have been discussing the conflict. There should have been a

1155
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 4: separate lawyer. You should have come in and said, hey, look,

1156
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:44,000
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know what your defense is, but

1157
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 4: your defense needs to be someone else did it, and

1158
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 4: we got to figure out who that is, and it's

1159
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:52,240
Speaker 4: probably this guy's client would be the best place to start, right.

1160
01:01:52,360 --> 01:01:55,280
Speaker 4: None of that happened, and so Levon, you know, puts

1161
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 4: his faith in a system that completely let him down.

1162
01:01:59,120 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1163
01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 2: One other things that I think it's kind of amazing

1164
01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 2: in the story is during Kennedy Brewer's trial, by that point,

1165
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:09,600
Speaker 2: Michael West had been criticized by other forensics people and

1166
01:02:09,640 --> 01:02:13,000
Speaker 2: in fact there had been a few media investigations and

1167
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 2: actually during Kennedy Brewer's trial twenty twenty, and John Stossel

1168
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 2: had been investigating West, and the judge in the case

1169
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 2: had heard a rumor that the twenty twenty special was

1170
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:30,240
Speaker 2: going to air one night during Kennedy Brewer's trial, and

1171
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 2: it ended up airing much later. But in response to that,

1172
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 2: they had all the TVs taken out of the rooms

1173
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 2: that the jurors were staying in so that they wouldn't

1174
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 2: see it, which is, you know, completely understandable, you don't

1175
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:43,760
Speaker 2: want to buy some jers, but like you know, but

1176
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:47,040
Speaker 2: also it didn't cause anyone to stop and think, oh,

1177
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:49,240
Speaker 2: because I mean in that in that case, you know,

1178
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 2: or that that story ended up being really damning for West.

1179
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 2: I mean, it talked about multiple other cases where he

1180
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:56,920
Speaker 2: caused the wrong person to be arrested, where you know,

1181
01:02:57,000 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 2: he had given just really preposterous testimony about you know,

1182
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:05,440
Speaker 2: finding purse marks on an arm that had you know,

1183
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 2: happened where someone a person been snatched you know, months

1184
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 2: maybe weeks earlier, and using his ultra violet light technology.

1185
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:14,360
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just really yeah, it made him

1186
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 2: look like a fool. Like the fool that he was,

1187
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 2: and instead they just decided to make sure the jury

1188
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 2: didn't see any of that.

1189
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:23,840
Speaker 1: Well, to wrap this up, you have a pretty like

1190
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:27,440
Speaker 1: medium list of characters. You've got the dentist, You've got

1191
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 1: the medical examiner, You've got Courtney's family, You've got Christine's family,

1192
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:34,280
Speaker 1: and then you have these two men who have been

1193
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted but then exonerated, and then you have the

1194
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 1: real killer, Justin Johnson. What ultimately happens with all of

1195
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:47,520
Speaker 1: these people. Just to sort of summarize, Justin Johnson pled

1196
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:50,240
Speaker 1: in order to avoid the death penalty, and he's serving

1197
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 1: two life sentences. Levon unfortunately passed away not too long

1198
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: before our book was published. I think Riley and I

1199
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: both think that he died of stomach cancers, but that

1200
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:05,440
Speaker 1: he had gotten ill while he was locked up.

1201
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 4: But he hung in there for a while and did

1202
01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:12,760
Speaker 4: well and was in good spirits, but ultimately succumbed. Kenny

1203
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:16,480
Speaker 4: has also had his own health problems. He just had

1204
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 4: He's had a series of strokes. It's one of the

1205
01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:20,880
Speaker 4: reasons that stopped in last week to check on him.

1206
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:24,800
Speaker 4: He's doing okay, He's he's lost his ability to talk

1207
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 4: and lost some use in his right arm. But he's

1208
01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:31,880
Speaker 4: living in his mom's place. A couple of sisters are nearby.

1209
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:36,040
Speaker 4: In fact, one was right across the way. All things considered,

1210
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 4: he's in good spirits, though not in particularly good health.

1211
01:04:38,920 --> 01:04:41,360
Speaker 2: So I'll talk about Hain and West. So Hain was

1212
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 2: he was state medical examiner for a couple of years,

1213
01:04:44,880 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 2: but for the most part he was always in private practice,

1214
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 2: and he was he would be contracted by prosecutors to

1215
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 2: do autopsies and suspicious death cases. H and he was

1216
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:57,200
Speaker 2: able to kind of monopolize those those referrals by telling

1217
01:04:57,400 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 2: prosecutors what they wanted to hear. After of Brooks and

1218
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 2: Brewer xonerations, I'm was saying, maybe two thousand and eight,

1219
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, the Department of Public Safety told

1220
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 2: Haine he could no longer do autopsies for prosecutors in

1221
01:05:09,480 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 2: the state, so it was essentially fired. He then continued.

1222
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 2: He then started testifying for the defense in a number

1223
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:17,880
Speaker 2: of cases, which he had never done before. But you know,

1224
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 2: ultimately three I think other exonerations that Hain and or

1225
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:26,720
Speaker 2: West worked on maybe four, and then I and Tucker

1226
01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 2: and lots of other people who you know, have been

1227
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 2: involved in these cases have said, you know, Haine testified

1228
01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:36,920
Speaker 2: in thousands of homicide cases West probably in some at

1229
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:39,840
Speaker 2: least probably one hundred or more. You know, there's never

1230
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 2: been any attempt to assess the damage that they that

1231
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 2: they did to the criminal justice system or to find

1232
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:49,680
Speaker 2: other innocent people. And Tucker has valiantly, you know, represented

1233
01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:51,120
Speaker 2: a number of these people to try to get their

1234
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 2: cases reviewed, and it's really really difficult, particularly in federal court.

1235
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 2: You know, I think part of it is people don't

1236
01:05:57,200 --> 01:05:59,320
Speaker 2: really want to know how much nigmage was done because

1237
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:02,040
Speaker 2: it would you know, fundamentally calling a question in the

1238
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 2: legitimacy of the criminal justice system to know that, you know,

1239
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:07,840
Speaker 2: this guy who testified in thousands and thousands of cases,

1240
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 2: who knows how many innocent people he put in prison?

1241
01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:13,240
Speaker 2: But also, you know, there are also all the cases

1242
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 2: where you know that the case is where they needed

1243
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:18,440
Speaker 2: Haynes's testimony to help them get a conviction. But also

1244
01:06:18,680 --> 01:06:21,360
Speaker 2: you know, in parts of this country, black life wasn't

1245
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 2: valued quite as much as other life by by state officials,

1246
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 2: and so there were lots of other cases where maybe

1247
01:06:26,520 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 2: a police chief or a prosecutor just wanted, didn't want

1248
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,280
Speaker 2: another homicide to deal with, and so Hain would say

1249
01:06:32,280 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 2: somebody died of natural causes or suicide. There's one case

1250
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:38,040
Speaker 2: in particular, I remember talking to a medical examiner reviewed

1251
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 2: hanes work where a woman was found with blunt force

1252
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:43,240
Speaker 2: trauma to the head and there was blood all over

1253
01:06:43,280 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 2: the walls and a neighbor saw somebody running out of

1254
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 2: the house carrying with a bloody shirt. And Hained did

1255
01:06:48,920 --> 01:06:51,520
Speaker 2: the autopsy. And this was a low income black woman

1256
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:54,560
Speaker 2: in rural Mississippi, and Hain include that she had died

1257
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 2: of a stroke, and you know when another medical examiner

1258
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 2: reviewed that, it was you know, she was clearly murdered.

1259
01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:02,680
Speaker 2: So you know, there are all those cases. There are

1260
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 2: deaths in police custody there. For a while there there

1261
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 2: were when there was a rash of suicides in Mississippi jails.

1262
01:07:08,920 --> 01:07:11,320
Speaker 2: There was fear that black people were being lynched in

1263
01:07:11,320 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 2: Mississippi jails. Now so it turns out these were all suicides,

1264
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 2: which was the product of another problem, which was that

1265
01:07:18,120 --> 01:07:20,360
Speaker 2: the jails were so decrepit that people were killing themselves

1266
01:07:20,480 --> 01:07:22,360
Speaker 2: rather than stay in them. But you know, part of

1267
01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:25,520
Speaker 2: the problems when when Mississippi did an investigation. They had

1268
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:27,760
Speaker 2: Hay do all the autopsies, and and you know, people

1269
01:07:27,760 --> 01:07:29,600
Speaker 2: who knew Hey knew that he couldn't be trusted, and

1270
01:07:29,640 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 2: so the States weren't on what was happening, you know,

1271
01:07:32,920 --> 01:07:36,680
Speaker 2: wasn't legitimate. So there has never been any effort to audit,

1272
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 2: you know, the cases that these guys are involved with,

1273
01:07:39,560 --> 01:07:41,800
Speaker 2: to assess the full damage they did to the system.

1274
01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:44,960
Speaker 2: And it's it's it's tragic because there are a lot

1275
01:07:45,000 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 2: of people people Tucker represents people in Louisiana as well.

1276
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 2: There's at least one guy in death row in Louisiana

1277
01:07:50,720 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 2: where we know that West created bitemarks on the corpse

1278
01:07:54,280 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 2: of the little girl and then match them to the defendant,

1279
01:07:56,600 --> 01:07:59,120
Speaker 2: used a dental mold of the defendant to create the

1280
01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 2: bite marks, and nobody's you know, it's left to people

1281
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:05,960
Speaker 2: like Tucker and groups like the Innis's Project and pro

1282
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:09,280
Speaker 2: bono attorneys to sort of try to get justice in

1283
01:08:09,320 --> 01:08:11,800
Speaker 2: these cases one at a time, when really what needs

1284
01:08:11,800 --> 01:08:15,240
Speaker 2: to happen is the state makes needs to take responsibility

1285
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 2: for its failure and do a thorough audit and find

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Speaker 2: out how much damage has been done.

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01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,400
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories. Check out the

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Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

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01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:40,640
Speaker 1: Is Wicked and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are

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01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:44,519
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More

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01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:48,200
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

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01:08:48,200 --> 01:08:51,000
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

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01:08:51,040 --> 01:08:55,520
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi.

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01:08:55,880 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

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01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:04,280
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by

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Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and

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Speaker 1: Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More

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Speaker 1: Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod